Model Forum / General / Railroads / September 2008

More precisely, the NMRA decided lead an organised challenge of the
patent because if it stood, DCC  prices would go through the roof.
Manufacturers helped out with the cash, as it did some individuals IIRC.
The company that claimed the patent appears to be one of many such who
trawl through some technology looking for unpatented stuff, and then
apply for patents. It's a quick and nasty way to hold whole segments of
an industry to ransom. If the wrongfully issued patent is worth
loadsadough, then a challenge will be answered, which can mean years of
wrangling, and lots of cash outlay. As long as the vultures don't get
too greedy, it's cheaper for manufacturers to pay royalties than to
fight. After all, the cost will be passed on to the consumer....

US patent law, which explicitly disregards patents issued in other
countries, encourages such behaviour. It also means that anything
patented elsewhere must be patented in the US, too, which can add
considerably to the development costs of a product.

Another factor in the NMRA case was that the NMRA DCC standards are
based in part on public domain "prior art." Some of it was developed by
Keith Guiterriez, and published in a series of article in Model
Railroader in 1980, IIRC. Keith applied existing art to the problem of
what we now call DCC. His articles even included instructions on how to
program the decoder - in BASIC!

HTH

MS have used open-source code in thier products, and done so openly,
but the code they used was under the 3-clause BSD licence, which
allows one to use it in a closed-source program provided you attribute
the BSD-sourced code *in the source code* of the new program[0]. An example
of BSD code in MS products is the TCP stack. MS have never been caught
using code which was under a more restrictive Free licence illegally,
but since most of thier code is closed it would be hard to find evidence.

[0] The 3-clause BSD licence reads:
* Copyright (c) <year>, <copyright holder>
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:
*     * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
*       notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*     * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
*       notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
*       documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
*     * Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
*       names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
*       derived from this software without specific prior written
permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY <copyright holder> ''AS IS'' AND ANY
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
* WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
* DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL <copyright holder> BE LIABLE FOR ANY
* DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
* (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES;
* LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED
AND
* ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
* (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS
* SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.